Photo Location Help? (Bryn Mawr Park, Putnam Division)

This slide was listed online for sale. It was labelled as taken in 1967. Can any of you guys identify the location?

Looking at the train make up I would have to think this was on the Upper Harlem but I can't recall anyplace there where the trees come in like they do in the photo. Maybe Philmont??????
Noel Weaver

Upper Harlem,maybe,some where on the branch to N Adams Ma from Chatham?

could it be nj on the west shore?

It's Bryn Mawr Park, on the Putnam Division, taken from the Palmer Road overpass. The train is a westbound excursion, which will turn at East View.

The year was 1967.

R Paul Carey wrote:It's Bryn Mawr Park, on the Putnam Division, taken from the Palmer Road overpass. The train is a westbound excursion, which will turn at East View.

The year was 1967.

Ahhh ok I wondered if it was maybe an excursion on the Put - or even one of the Boston lines. It would be interesting to see a "now" shot taken from this same location.

Many thanks!!

R Paul Carey wrote:It's Bryn Mawr Park, on the Putnam Division, taken from the Palmer Road overpass. The train is a westbound excursion, which will turn at East View.

The year was 1967.

I never would have guessed this was the Put - I did not recognize this scene at all. But to be fair, I've seen only a handful of pics taken at BMP when it was in service.

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:I've seen only a handful of pics taken at BMP when it was in service.

-otto-

Here's one from 1934 (currently for sale on eBay):

R Paul Carey wrote:It's Bryn Mawr Park, on the Putnam Division, taken from the Palmer Road overpass. The train is a westbound excursion, which will turn at East View.

The year was 1967.

I agree, it was Oct. 1967. I was on that trip. Considering the date was just a few months before PC, this may have been the very last NYC fan trip of all time! I have a few photos taken at East View, Elmsford, and Ardsley, where we had photo stops.

I was very interested in seeing the photo of the excursion train. If you notice in the lower right hand corner you can see the eastern end of the platform at Bryn Mawr Park station. Here's a drawing of the station from an 1890 issue of Railway World:



There is a "facsimile" station on the site now, pictured in a Google photo below.. It was built in the 1990s I think, by a railfan named John Del Bene. At first his family used it as a produce market but it closed in 2003. His son Dan has turned it into a railroad museum complete with "kit-bashed" red caboose. I don't know what the hours are or if it is even still open. I live in Yonkers and I've driven in there -- it's on a dead end section of 'old Palmer Road' just south of today's Palmer Road overpass on the west side of the old right-of-way -- and it has always been closed. Here's a link to a news article about the station and current plans (current as of August 2013): Link

One other photo I wanted to add, and I apologize because it's not very good. It is, however, the only photo I have ever found of the old Mile Square Road grade crossing in Yonkers. (I live about ten minutes away and I drove across it twice this morning while running errands.) The crossing is just east of the Bryn Mawr Park station, and the photo shows an eastbound train about to cross. I remember being surprised to discover the Putnam Division crossed Mile Square Road at grade. I think it might have been the only surviving grade crossing on the Put main line in Yonkers. (The nearby Palmer Road grade crossing was eliminated in the mid-1930s.) My wife and I have walked the South County trail and this was where we accessed it, where the trail crosses Mile Square Road.

I have spoken to old-timers in Yonkers about the Put. There are many who remember it when it was still running, even a few people who rode the trains before the May 1958 discontinuance of passenger service. Some must've ridden across the crossing but they don't remember it, don't remember hearing their train signal for it. A few people I've spoken with remember the crossing from the Penn Central era when a local freight would sporadically appear. In that era they flagged the crossing, the locomotive would stop clear of the crossing, the brakeman would drop off and get traffic on Mile Square Road stopped, the engineer would give a couple of blasts on the air horn and then slowly cross Mile Square Road. There were no crossing gates -- judging by the steam era photo I don't think there ever were -- but there were crossbucks with flashing lights. The lights still worked even in the PC era: one lady told me the red lights used to start blinking at odd hours when no train was on the line and remain blinking for an hour or two. She said if you were driving it was very annoying!

Tommy,

The architectural sketch was of a proposed structure for Bryn Mawr Park, which in the earliest days of the NYC&N/NY&N had been referred to as "Summit". There were sketches of interior fireplaces, as well, all in keeping with the development of the adjacent area locally known as "Bryn Mawr Knolls".

The 1934 photo shows the station at its original site, with the Palmer Road grade crossing immediately adjacent on the east side. The building shows the same roof line it had until its demolition in 1963. For the 1938 Palmer Road overpass, the station was moved to the east and a barricade was built on the Palmer Road stub across the track (north side, RR direction), directly opposite the relocated station.

Mile Square Road crossing was within walking distance of my boyhood home, and your post rekindles many memories:

As a toddler, I "drove" my blue Buick pedal car to the crossing, to "see the sights" and to await the passage of a train. The line had just been dieselized. Recognized by a friend of my parents, however, I was scooped up - Buick and all - and carried home to a very stern reprimand. The Buick was never to be seen again. To her last, Mom steadfastly refused to disclose its fate!

To the end of service in 1958, I rode the Put whenever I could, and was a "regular" on the late afternoon Ardsley turn in 1957, as a third-grader. My secret was safe (only away for an hour) until my older brother was invited to ride the engine with me one day. A "suit" was spotted on the Odell Avenue bridge at Gray Oaks, so we were ushered back to the coaches, where the Conductor (either Pete Flood or Fred Lent) said, "hi Paul... who's your friend riding with you today?". Even after handling my brother's chores for a few weeks, my secret got leaked to Mom and Dad. Not good!

Engineer Bill Kennedy was no less than a boyhood hero to me. One day, prior to his retirement in 1961, he was running a few cars up to Nepperhan, returning light. He recognized me at the Mile Square crossing, stopped the train, and asked me if I wanted to ride to Nepperhan and back (about 30 minutes). Of course, I accepted!

The grade westbound to this crossing was 1.67%. One winter day in the early 1960's, the plows had shoved up a wall of snow and ice at the crossing. Engine 877 (an S-1) was running another Nepperhan turn with a few cars, hit the snow and ice, and stalled. They weren't able to restart the engine. Fred Washburn was the engineer and they came to our house to call for help. Unfortunately, I was in school at the time. DANG!

In those days, NYC people everywhere were gracious and kindly - at least to one thoroughly absorbed youngster, for sure!

Paul.

Paul that's interesting about your brief encounter with the Mile Square Road crossing. Do you recall crossing gates by any chance?

Just for giggles, below is a Then and Now shot of the crossing. In the Now photo what looks like a drive way on the left is actually the former Put ROW (now the South County Trail). The other side is marked by the little corral-style fence.

Paul I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comments about Bryn Mawr Park and environs. Thanks for taking the time to post that.

A couple of comments I could add:

Today I read some old news articles in a Yonkers Herald-Statesman news archive. Back in the1930s the City of Yonkers and the Bryn Mawr Park home owners association fought the plan to eliminate the grade crossing. Not too often nearby residents want a grade crossing maintained instead of eliminated but in this case they did. They thought the overpass would be unsightly and unnecessary. They specifically objected to the fact the overpass would require a curve on each end versus the existing alignment which was straight. They also said it was unneeded because with one exception all Putnam passenger trains stopped at Bryn Mawr Park and thus were moving at slow speed over the crossing. No one could remember an accident there. Yonkers objected because the project would mean the demolition of a row of stores on the north side of Palmer Road and cost the city property tax revenues. New York Central had originally supported the project but by 1936 the railroad had changed its mind. Central said if the community didn't think it was necessary, that the overpass would be more hazardous to drivers than the grade crossing, that was good enough for the railroad. The 1930s were tough years for Central -- like all businesses -- and they really did not want to spend the money. I couldn't find a cost estimate but the project's split was 50% NYC; 49% New York State and 1% Westchester County. The New York Public Service Commission ruled, however, the crossing fit the criteria for crossings the legislature had identified as needing to be eliminated. The project was ordered carried out. The 'Grand Opening' was on Dec. 8, 1937.

Below is a New York & Putnam timetable from an 1896 Official Guide. No Bryn Mawr Park station yet, which would be between Dunwoodie (Yonkers Avenue) and Nepperhan (Tuckahoe Road). It also shows times for the connecting trains on the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Els (which were still steam-powered in 1896). That Train No. 5 whose El train connection left Rector Street in Lower Manhattan at 4:00 PM arrived in Elmsford at 5:10 PM. Can't make it that fast today. Not even close!



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Tommy,

The crossing at Mile Square Road never had gates. In fact, the only gates I had ever seen on the line were at Elmsford, which were manually operated.

Thanks for digging out the reports from the Herald Statesman; I had no idea the Palmer Road overpass was so controversial!

The Official Guide schedule which you posted is a condensed schedule, as you can see from the omission of several other stations on the line. This is not unusual to see with OG schedules. I have TT#1 of the NY & Putnam (lessee) dated 1894, and Bryn Mawr Park was already in service by then.

Paul.